Richard Mabey is among the best writers at work in Britain. I don't mean among the best nature writers, I mean the best writers, full stop. I would read anything he wrote, but if such a thing as nature writing exists and flourishes today it is thanks almost entirely to him. I have lived by his books for all of my life. Pretty much all of what nature means to me, I know thanks to his own lifelong clear-eyed but loving investigation of what it means to him. He has allowed us all to think about modern nature – our world - but also, crucially, to feel it too. I cannot imagine a truer green man.

One figure, like no other, looms large in setting the ground for the contemporary form that has come to be called then New Nature Writing. Richard Mabey is an author whose work has consistently pioneered new ways of thinking about landscape, nature, place, culture and the range of interconnections that all of these share. Often this has meant reminding us of old ways of thinking about these things but he has always had a sharp eye for the new meanings our modern context provokes.

One of our most influential writers on the natural world

A valuable contribution to a great cause

Poised where nature meets culture, he [Richard Mabey] is knowledgeable, politically savvy and wry, and an excellent naturalist

A vintage collection that shows the evolution of his [Mabey’s] thinking, perfect for chilling out